After Zhanil Fezhe and Dr. Robanton entered through the open door.
Some time passed.
Then, one snake, one vine grass, and a soul fragment appeared in that place.
The white snake vomited as soon as it appeared.
==
“Kweeeeck!”
A smell that really makes you want to throw up.
I wasn’t the only one suffering.
Isil crumpled up like someone who had bitten into a lemon.
Looking at Isil’s reaction, it was clear that plants could smell too.
‘It’s Pandan’s smell!’
This was Pandan’s scent.
When the wyverns invaded the dungeon, Pandan covered himself with an ampoule that had a terrible smell.
That smell was unmistakable.
Would fermented skate and soybean paste stuffed in fish guts and left at room temperature for a week smell like this?
“Kweeck-!”
“Stop being so dramatic with the overreacting!”
Pelerian shouted angrily.
Surprisingly, to Pelerian, this smell seemed to be just slightly fishy.
A stench that only affects monsters.
Though the smell is unbearably strong, it doesn’t seem to actually be poisonous. That’s rather surprising.
“They must have passed through here.”
Insects are crawling all over that floor.
Though it’s a disgustingly creepy sight, it’s no problem for me who has been through everything.
“I had frozen ancient blood-sucking bedbugs. Hmm…”
Pelerian frowned.
“What’s this, there’s a device showing magical illusions.”
‘Don’t you remember?’
“I don’t remember installing that.”
There were several holes in Pelerian’s memory, and this seemed to be one of them.
‘There are dead dwarves.’
Dwarf corpses were scattered everywhere.
They were dried up like mummies, and seeing the bedbugs swollen like red grapes made the cause of death clear.
“They should have died more painfully… Those untrustworthy short ones.”
I heard Pelerian was closer to dwarves and gnomes than his own kind.
Yet those dwarves had already tried to sell off Pelerian’s dungeon twice.
“Go that way.”
That’s what Pelerian said.
His tone suggested he couldn’t see the bedbugs that had massacred the dwarves.
‘Ugh, the smell…’
But I wasn’t particularly afraid of the bedbugs either.
I boldly entered right into their midst.
First, I unleashed without restraint the dignity gained from my experience leading hundreds of monsters as their leader.
The more sensitive bedbugs slowly moved away.
“Saak!”
Of course, there were some who fearlessly charged even after I shouted.
They attached themselves to my body to suck my blood.
‘Not even ticklish.’
But none of them could damage my crystal scales.
Crunch-
Rather, many of them were crushed crispy under me.
Since the incoming magical energy was negligibly weak, I was able to quickly reach the door as Pelerian directed.
“See that hole up there?”
‘Yes.’
“Go in through there.”
‘Not through the open door?’
“The ventilation duct would be better actually. We need to catch up to those who went in first.”
If that’s the case.
I stabbed a dagger in and twisted to tear off the wire mesh blocking the vent.
Then I leaped up.
When I hung somewhat precariously, Isil extended vines to help me enter the vent.
“Just keep crawling straight ahead.”
When building the dungeon, there was no need to worry about intruders entering through the ventilation ducts.
Unlike what you see in movies like Mission Impossible, the vents were very narrow.
Only barely wide enough for a snake like me to pass through.
Pelerian ran ahead first to find the way.
“This way.”
He seemed to know the general structure of the dungeon.
‘You don’t remember properly?’
“Right, there are spaces in the dungeon I can’t remember.”
‘So?’
“We’re heading to a place I can’t remember. The reason my main body erased those memories must be hidden there.”
How clever.
Though I was a bit surprised.
Not because Pelerian’s trick was particularly ingenious.
It was because of his use of the term ‘main body’.
It seems like the first time he’s referred to himself that way, and somehow the resonance of the word is strange.
Unlike ‘I’, doesn’t ‘main body’ sound like a separate entity?
I followed Pelerian’s directions and crawled through the winding ventilation duct.
Fortunately, there weren’t any traps prepared inside the vent.
Instead, I got a bit bored because the path was complex and narrow.
So I asked Pelerian.
‘What do you think is hidden in this dungeon?’
Pelerian didn’t answer immediately.
Rather than not wanting to answer, it seemed like he wanted to organize his thoughts one more time.
“It must be about arrangements after death.”
Pelerian’s title is ‘Heaven Defier’.
It means to go against heaven, but in truth he went against the entire world.
He went against his race’s will, and against the laws and morals of nations and civilization.
Thus he was called a villain, but Pelerian seemed to have his own grievances.
“I don’t care what they call me. Whether dog or cow, enemy of the empire or whatever, I don’t care. I had a noble purpose…”
In any case, Pelerian wasn’t the type of villain who was a conquest maniac or pleasure killer.
If categorizing him, it would be most appropriate to see him as a mad scientist.
One who had gone mad enough to burn the entire world for what he believed was a noble purpose.
“Make fairies great again. My purpose was to evolve that declining race into High-Elves.”
When Pelerian talked about such purposes, his voice tone changed dramatically like in a play.
It shows how sincere he was.
However.
Perhaps because I’ve spent quite a long time with him.
For some reason, I felt a strange artificial quality in that tone.
As if replaying recorded words.
As if trying to gather his tired heart by repeating those words.
“Even if I died, I hoped that purpose would be achieved. Then I must have left something behind to accomplish it.”
It was a rational and reasonable deduction.
What Pelerian had been doing was actually research on an enormous scale.
Human races do not evolve. This is true for humans, fairies, and dwarves alike.
Pelerian’s research was aimed at overcoming such natural laws to evolve fairies.
The dungeons scattered across the continent could strictly be called research bases.
‘Could it be a laboratory?’
“Laboratory…”
‘You said you couldn’t complete the research to evolve all fairies into High-Elves, right?’
“That’s what I remember. I only found clues, nothing more. I never completed the research. How could I research after I died?”
A witty idea flashed in my mind.
‘You made golems, right?’
“Golems?”
‘Yes, not fighting golems but researcher golems. So they could continue researching fairy evolution even after you died. Maybe golems have been continuously experimenting and exploring down there all this time.’
“Huh, that is… truly…”
I let my imagination run wild.
Even I thought it sounded plausible.
Pelerian also stopped abruptly with a surprised expression.
“Truly foolish thinking!”
‘…’
“Do you think research is easy? It’s a problem I, a genius, couldn’t solve despite dedicating my entire life. Talking about researcher golems…”
What a disappointing old man.
